


Smoke and Fire

by animalker



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 01:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3362654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animalker/pseuds/animalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This isn't peace</i>, Sebastian thinks, standing alone and afraid in the plains of the Free Marches with only his bow and armour to his name, and doesn't know where to look to find it.</p>
<p><i>I will not find peace</i>, Hawke believes, kneeling in front of Andraste's statue and praying for those she has killed in the name of family, and longs for it anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke and Fire

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr version](http://inquisiitor.tumblr.com/post/105094641959/1-when-sebastian-first-meets-hawke-he-doesnt)

> 1.

When Sebastian first meets Hawke, he doesn’t see her and he doesn’t know her name. A woman shorter than him, clad in armour, steps aside as he blazes out of the Chantry courtyard, anger thundering through his veins. His eyes burn when his throat closes up, and he starts up the stairs to the Keep, but his thoughts are scattered to the wind. He must- _‘this is murder!’_ \- he turns away as swiftly as he first ascended the steps.

He wanders Kirkwall aimlessly, bow clutched in his hand, until he is hopelessly lost. Lowtown had always been a maze, and sisters have an assigned path to avoid this exact situation. It winds around and around with it’s tall, looming buildings and shadowed alleys. He feels like a rat in a maze. Unimportant. Unwelcome. It is a familiar weight upon his shoulders, one he knows how to deal with, a burden he knows how to hold. This empty, sick feeling where his lungs used to work and his heart used to beat is something he is familiar with too, but never on this magnitude. Everything else he has felt before is unimportant, _unimaginable_ in the wake of this grief.

His parents have always cast large shadows, and Sebastian wants to fling himself at their mercy like he never did before. He would walk gladly to their shade again. He would gladly throw himself on the assassin’s blade if one, just one, would be spared. He would dig his hands into his own chest and crack open his ribs and rip out this blackened, bloody thing if it meant he could see them again, and he would do it _gladly_.

"The Maker has meaning in everything He does," he remembers saying to a grieving widow, and now, standing in the midst of Lowtown, buffeted by the crowds and a rising scream building in his chest, he wants to tear our his own throat for uttering those words. "The Maker has meaning—" meaning, he thinks bitterly. _Meaning_.

He thought he understood grief, understood pain, and he is only now realising he never has. He yearns for every single assassin that killed his family to die. For justice, he thinks, for justice. To grant his family the peace they need. Not revenge. No. It is not murder, no matter what she thinks. He prays as he tries to free himself of the maze he has gotten lost in, the sun lowering in the sky, shadows lengthening on the ground. He prays for his family, prays for justice, prays to the Maker to bring back what he once took for granted.

When he finally stumbles back to the Chantry, bow still clutched in stiff fingers, the notice has been taken down. Maybe it’s for the best. He’ll face the assassins when they come for him, and he’ll die on his feet unlike his parents, who had their hands on their heads and were on their knees.

A prince kneels for Death, his grandfather had said to him once. Kneel for Death, because He never forgets and always collects.

> 2.

On the day he is due to leave Kirkwall, to strike out to Tantervale and connect with his parents allies, he lingers in the tall, hallowed halls of the Chantry, the only true haven he’s ever found, and looks up to the bronze statue of Andraste. He wonders whether her crusade ever felt this hopeless. If she ever felt alone, even though she had the Maker at her side, loving her like no other had loved before or since. She still died, even with a god's love, lashed to the pyre and choking on a scream. 

Hawke is kneeling before the red sunburst banner, both legs tucked underneath her and hands linked together, head bowed. She had given him the smiling jackal pendant of Flint Company, bloodied and dented. ‘i’m sorry i couldn’t do more,’ she had said, ‘i hope this helps’. It had been in an entirely different way to the sisters murmuring their platitudes. She hadn’t had pity in her dark brown eyes, but there had been a strange, fierce kind of anger burning hot and deep.

She is mouthing prayer instead of saying it aloud like so many do, and her armour is polished and clean, with no hint of blood or signs of war. She is weaponless. Sebastian stands next to the pillar and hesitates, backpack over his shoulders and wearing the armour his father gave him. There is a smear of blood on a pillar, near to the floor, a tiny speck on the otherwise clean stone. He remembers Sister Justine finding a slaughtered group of raiders days after Hawke had given him the jackal pendant, and he remembers before, when he did not know his life was in ashes at his feet, finding dead templars in the alcove above the halls. They had stared, wide eyed and blank, at the ceiling. Some had been torn apart like ragdolls, and he remembers kneeling and scrubbing at the floor, soapy pink water foaming under his hands. Kirkwall’s Chantry is bloody and bruised, and it doesn’t feel right to see it lingering on holy ground.

"Are you leaving?" Hawke says in her Ferelden accent, and when he lifts his head from examining the dried fleck of blood, she is looking at him with her soft eyes that still contain no pity. Her dark brown skin is gold-lit by the flames of the little red candles around the sunburst. She unclasps her hands and rests them on her knees.

"I mean to reclaim my lands." He recites, as he said to Elthina last night and several nights before that. "I must seek aid for my cause."

Elthina had called him a vengeful fool and had turned her back until this morning, when she pressed a holy symbol into his hand and wished him safety. Her eyes had been sad. Hawke does none of this, and instead gets up, rolling her shoulders. She is leaner than her stocky build suggests she should be, and her shoulders are as broad as his. “Dumar didn’t help, huh?”

The viscount had let him stand there and lay out his carefully and meticously worded speech, then turned him away. His eyes were a sharp blue but he had murmured false apologies. His assistant had called him boy and watched him leave, eyes square on his back. It had taken all his willpower to keep his chin up and head held high as he descended the stairs, as useless as he was when he stepped in.

"He had… other matters he was more concerned about."

"I’ll bet he does."

"You come to the Chantry a lot." He says, fumbling for a conversation topic and latching onto it. "You believe, then?"

"I do. It is-" she looks aside and does not continue. "I’m leaving Kirkwall too."

"Back to Ferelden?"

"No. The Deep Roads."

"Why?" He asks, brow furrowing. The Deep Roads are a warren of death and darkspawn. He would not step foot in there. He wonders if Hawke’s faith will falter in such a dark place, or whether it will burn brighter. He wonders what is happening to his own faith.

"Money, mostly." She looks down to the necklace looped over her fingers. "It’s why I’m praying. It’s all for avarice, personal gain and…" She trails off and he misses the way her eyes slip to the templar standing at the door. He wonders what his cause is for. It’s for justice, not a crown he never thought he’d have. He wants the traitors dead. Nothing more. "I admit I’m afraid of what’s down there."

"You’d be a fool if you weren’t."

"Are you?"

"Am I what? A fool?"

"Afraid."

The question catches him low and fast, and it is like the air has been forced out of him. He flexes his hand on the strap of the bag. He is five, staring at the man executed on his parents orders, the knight who carried out the deed taking off his helm. He is sixteen and kissing a woman, intending to go further for the first time, and it isn’t only lust that hazes his mind. He is twenty four and standing outside the Kirkwall Chantry, a guard on either side; he is twenty seven, and holding the letter Elthina has given him, a roaring in his ears and a sick horror in his throat. He thinks he has always been afraid until he chose to open the Chantry’s doors and find peace. It has found him again- it has sought him out and sunk it’s claws into him. “I’m angry.” He says instead, then turns and walks past her, away from her soft eyes, heart thudding in his chest. He is terrified, and Hawke has only opened his eyes to just how much.

Hawke, like the bird. He slows between the two statues flanking the corridor, and turns around. Andraste towers over her, but Hawke doesn’t look small underneath her holy might. Sunlight lights up the bronze statue, and the braziers burn softly with incense. The smoke idles to the ceiling where it lingers, heavy and hot in the hazy Kirkwall summer.

"I never got your name," he says, and she looks at him. "I’d like to know your name."

She doesn’t quite study him, but it’s close. He’s too sick hearted with grief to put on a front, but he still wonders what she finds, whether he measures up to what a prince should be. “Florence.” She says, and smiles at him. She has a beautiful smile. “It’s Florence.”

"Thank you." He says. "I hope your expedition fares well."

"And yours, Sebastian. I hope you find the peace you seek."

> 3.

Summer in the Marches is always hot, but it’s a heat he’s used to and it passes all too quickly. Autumn is a steady decline into winter, which is always cold, bitingly cold. He’ll never get through one without frozen hands and numb fingers, and he struggles to draw his bow with the same level of finesse. He wears his fur lined jacket and the wind whips around his hair, pushing his hood down and chapping his lips. He moves onward despite the chill and the snow, piled high on either side of the roads.

As the seasons roll over again and again, he has gone to Tantervale, to Ostwick, south to Orlais, back to Kirkwall and away again, and none have answered his pleas. They give him shelter and profess their sympathies, but when he asks for anything more they do nothing. The ones who promise something never deliver. A murderer is sitting on the throne and his family’s blood spilled down the steps of their keep like a red silk curtain, and nobody cares. The children were killed, even the babes, and nobody cares. It is not their world that has been torn down. It is his, and his alone. He is the last. Whenever he thinks of the family he lost in one fell swoop he feels as if he is underwater. The grief drags down his lungs and staggers his steps.

There are assassins. He kills them all. He often sits awake at night, running a thumb along his bowstring, unable and unwilling to sleep, eyes burning with exhaustion and limbs leaden and heavy. His money rapidly dwindles and he is unused to this, having to choose between his need for shelter or the gnawing hunger in his stomach. The hunger wins in all but the coldest nights, but he begins to hunt in earnest, to save what coin he has for talks with nobles. He usually shoots birds or rabbits, and one day, when he is scanning the sky, he sees a lazily circling eagle, too high to bring down. It is silhouetted against the sun, and he inexplicably thinks of Hawke as it soars away. She has survived the Deep Roads and still smiles at him whenever he’s in Kirkwall. They talk when they can, often briefly, but he doesn’t forget her beautiful smile, her standing and wishing him luck, framed by Andraste, smoke and fire. He doesn’t forget her asking him if he is afraid.

"I hope you find the peace you seek."

This isn’t peace, he thinks. This isn’t peace. He still thinks of that day, of Hawke standing in front of him and telling him she killed those who butchered his family. He had thought a weight had been lifted, but it has pressed back down, twice as heavy and twice as damning. _This is murder._

It was murder, what he asked her to do. It was justice, but it was murder all the same. Is it his sin or hers?

He thinks of his family, of the nobles and their apologies, of his family and their butchered bodies lying in pools of their own blood, of the succession of houses he has visited, of the home that is his no longer, and it feels wrong to still be standing here, bow stretched and starting to wear, arrows fletched and fading in the hot sun. He thinks of Kirkwall, of the Chantry and the peace he found within, of someone who extended their hand and helped him in his darkest hour, of Elthina, who loves him like a son, of the city he can get lost in- unimportant, unwelcome-, of the place that could be a home if he only stayed long enough, and it feels right.

It also feels like defeat.

> 4.

Harimann.

The anger is back like it never went, and there is a thrumming hatred budded and stemmed in his chest, curling around his ribs like a creeping vine. The name is going round and round in his head as he thinks of Lord and Lady Harimann, of visiting their estate, playing with Flora, Ruxton and Brett, even though the boys were both older than him. He had ridden his first horse from their stables, and him and Flora had been taught to dance with each other during one summer, Flora blushing and Sebastian too busy concentrating he didn’t notice. He had _loved_ them.

They had ordered the murder of his family.

When he reaches Kirkwall again after nearly a year spent away, he is bone weary and thinner both physically and emotionally. Elthina kisses him on the brow, on the step above him, smoothing his hair back when she greets him. They sit over tea as he tells her what he has found, and she instead asks the two years spent away. He tells her of the hunger and the nobles who did not listen or help- he tells her of the bird and of the cold, the biting cold, and he tells her that he’s realised the reality of being alone. ‘Sebastian’, she says to him, eyes older than the rest of her, ‘find peace within yourself, or you will never be happy again.’ He sits on his cold, untouched bed, and smoothes a hand over the blankets as he thinks about that. Elthina has kept his things that he didn’t take with him, and they’ve been delivered to his room that’s stood empty since he left it behind. This could be a home if he wanted it to be, even though he now feels suffocated by the same walls that used to fortify.

Find peace within yourself, he thinks. First… first, he must see to the Harimann’s. No. He has to see the Harimann’s, and speak to them. He has to know why they did this. He has to look them in the eyes and ask if they are truly sorry for what they’ve done. He must, but he can’t go there alone and he has nobody to turn to.

For a week, he walks up to the Harimann’s door every day. Whenever he gets close, wrongness and fear like a slick poison coats his throat and he retreats back to the safety of the Chantry. When Hawke steps back into his life, he is exhausted and trying to summon the courage and foolhardiness to step through that door. She hasn’t changed much except she isn’t as lean as she used to be. He trusts her- or, at least, he trusts her ability to help him. He tells her of the Harimanns and how there is something wrong about that house. She squares her shoulders and promises her protection, that she will be there with him. He believes her.

He thinks of the ceilings of the Chantry, studded with silver, thinks of the crows nesting by the keep, wicked black beaks preening their feathers, and their hoarse throated cries. He thinks of the open skies he has travelled under for nigh on two years, the eagle circling the sun, and his worn down bow. He thinks of how Elthina is the only person he has, and how the loneliness steals into his hours. He used to like the quiet of the Chantry, but now? Now he has too many thoughts clouding his mind. Now he is the only one who carries the Vael name. He thinks of the suffering he’s seen of those who cannot protect themselves, and how others ignore it for their own comfort and ambition. He thinks of his grandfather telling him a prince kneels for Death, and thinks of his grandmother telling him a person can always be judged by their eyes.

Hawke has the kindest eyes he’s ever seen.

He asks- it’s more like begging, except he’s too proud to call it that- if he could travel with her, and not just for his own problems. “That depends.” She says, and he feels his smile inch downwards and his shoulders lower. There is always something. There is _always_ something, Vael, you fool. It’s never just- “Can you hit what you’re aiming for?” 

"I’m pretty good." He responds, smile growing wide. She returns the smile, eyes crinkling up and dimples in her cheeks. She offers her hand, and she has a strong, steady handshake.

"Then welcome aboard."

Happiness is… Sebastian has felt happy since his parents died, but it was always muddied by something. This is uncomplicated. This is simple.

> 5.

When Sebastian stumbles back to the Chantry a few days later, the desire demon’s voice curling around his head and whispering in his mind, Elthina greets him. She listens to him talk, perhaps on the side of desperate, then she rests a hand on his cheek and he feels like a little boy again. She asks if his vengeance is sated.

He says yes, but he’s beginning to think it never will.

He prays and thinks of Flora saying she will make reparations— what _reparations_ can make up for this? What can the Harimanns do to make him forgive them? There’s a bitter beast living where his heart once was, and the thought of trying to forgive them makes bile build in his throat, makes fury shake his hands. He went to talk, to listen to their reasons, to understand, and found it was one woman and her selfish desire, amplified by a demon.

Nobody’s sided with him. Nobody believes his parents, brothers, nieces and nephews deserve justice. Nobody cares there is an imposter seated on the throne, and nobody cares that his family was killed. A demon twisted the minds of people he knew, and took the people he loved. He cannot blame the Harimanns with a clear conscience as much as he wants to, and he has no true target for this grief inside of him.

Why is he doing this? The crown of Starkhaven is impossibly far, but sometimes… sometimes he feels if he just reached out, he could grasp it between two hands, and he could finally be more than the third child, neither the heir nor the spare, could finally make his parents proud—

The following day dawns hot and bright, and Hawke asks him to accompany her to the Wounded Coast early the next morning, to avoid a luncheon her mother is hosting. His eyes are gritty when he blinks, the sun harsh against his eyes which did not rest last night, but the path is simple and he follows her lead as they leave Kirkwall. He ignores Anders when he tries to bait him into an argument about the Chantry; while he’s not adverse to talking about it with him, he can’t- not now. Not now. He instead looks up at the bright blue sky and almost wishes he could drown in it. The low voice of the demon trickles down his spine like ice water, and despite the heat he shivers, skin prickling.

Hawke falls upon the bandits with a tightly coiled savagery, slamming her shield into people to make them crumple before her. She cuts a path through her enemies with brutal, sharp efficiency, and keeps the enemy’s attention on her, and her alone. She bears them all, feet light and fast. Sebastian sights down helmet slits, weaknesses in armour and those who try to get around her guard, arrow fletching to his cheek, and brings them to their knees.

The adrenaline washes out the blue, faded grief, and he’s smiling when they finish, even though blood is soaking into the sand. This is what I was made for, he thinks, this is what I can do. Hawke helps him collect arrows while Anders tends to a slash on Merrill’s forehead. Merrill laughs when Anders’ magic tingles her skin, toes curling in the sand, sweet face open and trusting. When Hawke grins at him, holding out a handful of arrows, she has blood in her teeth, and he smiles back.

It isn’t until later, when Kirkwall is within sight, the mismatch of buildings and the Keep grey and visible, rising above all the city, that he feels the weight of everything slowly press back on his shoulders again. Dusk is steadily darkening the horizon at their back, and Hawke lags to walk next to him. They pause at the rise to see Kirkwall sprawled beneath them. The grass on the bluff is scraggly, flattened from the wind, and it presses feather light against his knees.

"Demons are hard to bear." She says, without preamble. "They read your mind and twist your thoughts."

"I can’t get it’s voice out of my head."

"The problem is, demons are often right. About what we want, at least. Not about them being able to give it."

"I don’t want power."

"We all want power." She glances at him, then back at Kirkwall. "Sebastian, I… you held yourself well against it. It’s all we can do against something like that."

"And kill it."

"Yeah, killing it helps. Hey, you want to join us for Wicked Grace tonight at my house?"

"Gambling is a sin." He tells her mock seriously, and she laughs, resting her hand on his shoulder. He finds himself leaning into it. "I’d like that."

> 6.

The first person Sebastian sees Hawke kill after they surrender is a blood mage, with red still dripping from his hands, held aloft over his head. She draws her blade out of his chest and he collapses backwards onto a body of one of his thralls, eyes open and devoid of life.

"May the Maker forgive you." She said, then sheathed her sword without wiping it, which is rare behaviour. Sebastian pauses in collecting his arrows, one through the shattered skull of a thrall who had been about to drive her blades into Hawke’s back. Unavoidable, he tells himself. Her or Hawke, and the choice is easy when framed like that. She’ll still be yet another death on his hands, and he’ll pray for both her soul and absolution tonight. Hawke turns, clicking her tongue impatiently and rubbing the back of her neck with bloody gauntlets.

"Are you alright, Hawke?"

"What, I shouldn’t have killed him?"

"He was maleficar. He deserved his death."

"Then what’s the problem?"

"You… seem tired."

"Oh, right." She goes for a light tone, but it fails. "My dear mother had a dinner last night to try and entice some poor noble into marrying me."

"Ah."

"Ah is right. With Beth in the Circle, I’m the only one she’s got left to focus on." She sighed. "She’ll lose interest eventually. I’ll weather the storm."

"You shall endure?"

The corner of her mouth lifts up. “What you have created, no one can tear asunder. Very clever, Vael.”

It isn’t until later, when she drags her feet at the market in Hightown, he sees the slump to her shoulders, the dread in her eyes. She has been drinking more lately, if the glances of her friends are any guess, and he steadies her on the last step. She sighs, leaning on the pillar, weariness overtaking her all of a sudden. He feels a wave of guilt unsteady him- Hawke has accepted him and helped him, and he is too wrapped up in his own problems to notice hers.

"If you need a quick escape plan, hang something out of your front window." He said, and she stares at him. "I can see that window from mine, if I lean out a bit. I’ll come by and pretend there’s a fire somewhere."

She suppressed a laugh, snorting. “Try bandit attack. I don’t think my sword works well on natural disasters.”

"If there’s anyone who could, I’d put my money on you."

"Gambling is a sin." He laughed, and she grinned at him, loose and easy. "Shit, I bet it’d work. My mother adores you."

"If you need it, I’ll extract you from the nobles. Take it from one of them; we’re a terrible lot."

"Well," she said, and her eyes are bright with amusement, "not all of you."

> 7.

Apollo’s tail wags happily as he approaches down the steps to the Chantry, the moon giving everything an eerie pale light. The marble steps are cool under his bare feet but it isn’t a cold night. Hawke is sitting halfway down the steps, chin rested on her hand and other hand patting her dog behind his ears. She doesn’t look up until he speaks.

"Hawke? Are you alright?"

When she turns around she has a busted lip and there’s a streak of blood from her nose. She has a battered, bloody hand tucked around her stomach. She’s had worse in the time Sebastian has been fighting with her. She doesn’t look bothered by it. “I’m fine. Why are you up?”

"The sisters told me you were here."

She sighed. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” The blood glints wetly and she wipes at it with the back of her hand. “I just… wanted to get some air, and I like the Chantry.”

He sits next to her and scratches Apollo under the chin, hiding a yawn in his shoulder. The dog has blood on his muzzle and mattered in his fur. This close, he can see that the seams of Hawke’s shirt have split around her arms. Hawke’s shoulders are broad and muscled, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d gotten into a fight on the way here. She lives close but Kirkwall nights aren’t safe, and noble shirts aren’t made for fighting in.

"The Qunari delegate?"

"I was right there and… I saw them killing them, and I couldn’t get there.” She had tried to reach them, slamming her shield left and right, but the faithful had overwhelmed her through numbers. He had made his shoulders ache, trying to stop them killing the Qunari, but more had climbed over the dead bodies of the fallen and slashed their throats while he was drawing and aiming, seeking out gaps in the crowd. He knew these people, taken confessions from them, spoken to them during mass, delivered sermons to them. They have twisted his faith into something ugly, and he understands maybe better than anyone else Hawke’s stake in this.

"Mother Petrice has overstepped her bounds."

"She hides behind the Chantry, and the Viscount would rather bury it. He’s a coward. Justice must be the same for everyone, or else it’s prejudice."

"Politically-"

"I don’t care about politics." She snapped. "I care about what’s _right_. She caused the deaths of many, and is bringing war to Kirkwall. She deserves to face her crimes.”

"I’ve spoken to Her Grace. She’ll keep an eye on her. She can’t do much else, since Petrice has been… careful." She sighed, resting her hand over her face.

"Just what does Petrice expect to get out of this? The Arishok’s furious. Half the population of Lowtown is probably in Anders’ clinic right now from the saar-qamek, and its only going to get worse. Can’t you feel it?"

"Regardless of what Mother Petrice is doing," he says, "none of what happened today was your fault."

She laughed, but it’s bitter. “Is this the kind of stuff you expected when you asked to hang out with us?”

"No, but I don’t regret it." He touched her elbow before he stands up. "We should get that hand wrapped up."

"I didn’t come here for company, or anything."

"I know, but I’m offering it." He’s halfway through opening the door when she follows, Apollo settling next to the entrance like he usually does. He lowers his voice in the quiet halls of the Chantry. "Who did you punch?"

"A wall."

"That’s rarely helpful."

"I was… angry." She’s staring at the floor like it has unrevealed secrets, and he pulls out a chair for her at a table in the alcoves before going to find supplies.

"Rage is one of the hardest vices to overcome."

"I know." She uses her rage often. It is a familiar ally. She unleashes it against her enemies, until she is panting and wrung out and looser, smiles easier. She is oft cheerier after a fight, as if she has thrown off her burden off her shoulders. They all know, all of Hawke’s friends and allies, that it always comes back. He doesn’t speak as he treats her hand, gently smoothing the balm over her bloodied knuckles, testing her fingernails for circulation after the bandage is neatly wrapped and tucked under to hold in place. She stares at the wood of the desk, other hand dabbing away the blood coming from her nose, grimacing a bit. "It’s harder." She finally continues, when he’s wiped his hands and started to pack away his medicines. "When it’s aimed at yourself. It’s harder to…"

"You aren’t responsible for any of this." He recorks the flask, then sets it aside. "I know we haven’t known each other long, not properly, but you’re a remarkable woman. You help people solely to help them, and not for selfish gain. You’re a good person."

She shakes her head. “I know. But… look, it feels like it’s… I feel like I’m full to the brim of shame and rage, you know? I’m… I can’t get rid of any of it, not permanently. Fighting helps. Fighting makes things clearer, makes me… lighter, I suppose, if only for a time. And I can’t…” She starts to pick at the bandage, jaw determinedly set. “I can’t stop anything, and I can’t save anyone. I can’t please anyone, least of all…” She trails off, and shifts restlessly. He thinks of Hawke’s mother, the bitter words between the two, something they've all overheard- ‘i just want you to be happy’ ‘i am happy!’ ‘how _can_ you be?’- and the dinners she’s been subjected to with other nobles, of the set to her mouth of late, and now, sitting in noble clothing outside the Chantry steps, alone.

"Is this about your mother?"

She shrugs, but there are tears pricking in her eyes. “I shouldn’t complain. Not to…”

"Suffering isn’t a competition."

"I’m." She swallows, then tries again. "I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know how to-"

"Are you attracted to men?" She shakes her head, and he understands her predicament. Hawke is the only child Leandra has to dote upon, to carry on the family line, for those in the Circle are discouraged from marriage and children. There’s more pressure, as a noble. It won’t matter what he wants either, in the end, won’t matter how he tries to ignore it. He hopes Hawke won’t be resigned to the same fate he is. "Have you told your mother?"

"No, you don’t _understand_.” She still doesn’t look at him, but there’s a desperate, cracked edge to her voice now. He’s never seen her so frayed, so unwoven, and it makes him uneasy. “I don’t- not anyone. Not men, not women, not _anyone_ \- I’ve tried. I’ve tried, but I can’t make myself… there is… I can’t feel it.” He watches her shoulders shudder as she shakes apart. “I hate sex, I hate it, and I feel- I feel sick when I think of making myself do it… but who could be sastified with that?”

"If they loved you, they would never make-"

"Who can look past it?" She says, voice suddenly determined, as if this is something she’s repeated over and over again. "Why would anyone want me like this? I used to believe I’d like it once I experienced it, that I’d be fixed, and then when I had and I still didn’t, I just needed to like them more. But I’m still this- I’m still _nothing_ -“

"You’re _not_ nothing.” He interrupts, voice rising over hers. Something breaks in her open, honest, beautiful face, something cracks down the middle, then she looks aside, closing her eyes. “Hawke, the Maker creates us the way we are for a reason.” He reaches out and rests a hand on hers, over the top of the cotton bandages. She looks up, startled, wide eyes meeting his. “He doesn’t make mistakes. And if He did, you wouldn’t be one of them.”

She stares at him like nobody has ever said that to her, mouth slightly parted, and he tightens his grip on her hand. She doesn’t move for several heartbeats, and when she does she blinks rapidly, looks away. She doesn’t pull away from his touch, and they sit there for a long time.

> 8.

The sewer has an overpowering stench of death, shit and blood, and Sebastian feels like he is cleaved in two, like this is a dream. He watches Hawke collapse to the ground in inches, her strength eroding away, cradling Leandra in her arms. There is a bitterness in his throat and tension in his jaw. He thinks of his own mother, and wishes they didn’t have this common. Hawke’s knees are supporting Leandra and he can only see her back, but it is enough. He doesn’t need to see her to know what she is feeling. Aveline has a hand over her eyes, jaw set, and Anders hasn’t tried to call healing magic to his hands. Hawke doesn’t ask. She has sent enough people to their deaths to know what it looks like, and they all know it would be futile.

"No, Maker, please _no_ -“

Leandra is unnaturally pale and the black stitches knitting her skin together to… to other bodies, pieces of other women, are thick and crooked, as if a hand shook when they did it. Blood magic, he thinks. It is always blood magic. The demon’s corpse stares up at him, eyes open. Bones of the undead litter the area, all silent and still now their puppetmaster is dead. Leandra is sprawled like her strings have been cut, eyes open and arm hanging limply by her side. The smell makes him want to gag, and he swallows down bile.

"Blessed be- blessed be the s-souls of…" her voice crumbles, and it is a few seconds of gasping before she tries again. "Blessed- blessed b-be…"

He steps over a skeleton and kneels at her side, rests a hand on her neck. She falls silent, head bowed and shoulders shaking, shaking. “Blessed be the souls of the faithful, that they ascend to Your Right Hand…” she sits and listens to him pray for her mother, and when he’s done he repeats it, because he doesn’t know what else to do. She shudders and trembles and leans into him, turns her head. He rests his chin on her head, puts his arm around her shoulders, holds on tight, and says the only words he knows.

> 9.

"Sebastian," Hawke says, sitting on the bench in the top part of the Chantry, eyes shining with unshed tears and hands linked together so tightly the skin on her knuckles are stretched thin across the bone, "what do you think happens to bodies we can’t send off?"

The question brings him up short and runs a hand along the pew in front of him as he sits next to her. They couldn’t find the remains of Leandra’s body, and the ashes in her urn are not only hers. There had been a pile of women, with parts missing from each and most of them dismembered. None of them had been willing to ask Hawke to look. Hawke had inevitably found out through Isabela, who didn’t believe it was their choice to make. She had refused, then paid for the funeral services of all of them. She had then, because Hawke never believed in doing things by halves, started to seek out the families of the women. It was a fruitless, difficult, impossible task, but she tried anyway. Varric was giving her all the help he could, but some of the bodies were naught but skeletons, years old. He wishes he could give her what she’s looking for- what she needs to hear from another faithful of the Chantry- but he spent months asking himself the same question, and he still has no answers.

"I have to believe they find their way to the Maker’s side."

"Do you think the people killed your parents…?"

"No." He says, feeling the familiar old grief, but dulled by time and sympathy. "No, I don’t think they did." He wonders, sometimes, what happened to their bodies. Most likely they were tossed on a pyre and burned with the bodies of the servants and guards until the bodies were indistinguishable from each other. Had their eyes been open, their empty husks watching the flames engulf them whole, or had someone shown some small mercy and closed them? If they were not burned, then what? Did they swing from the gallows until they were blackened and swollen? Were their heads sliced off and set on pikes as a warning to others who dared murmur against the new prince? He looked away, down at the awning where a mother is delivering a sermon about Andraste. "I don’t like to think about it."

He is surprised when Hawke’s hand, callused and scarred, slips into his, and he curls his fingers to hold hers. Her hand is smaller than his. She holds on tight and he squeezes back, leaning his shoulder against hers.

"I miss her." She whispered, low and soft.

"I know." He said, and her breath catches in a sob. "I know."

> 10.

The sunburst is a halo around her head and shoulders, and her sword is bloody in her hand. She looks righteous. She stares down at Mother Petrice’s body, and the murder she brought to the heart of the Chantry in the name of the Maker. She has a nameless, wordless fury etched onto her face. He thinks that all Hawke would need is a cause.

The fury in her eyes remains when she turns to face them later, blood running a red river down her sword, lifting her head to look at them square in the eyes. She’s short of breath, and there’s a line of blood smeared across the corner of her mouth. The Arishok’s body lies at her feet, and he swallows past the lump in his throat as his heart beats faster. He wants to step up to her and kiss her gently, to remind her that anger and grief are not the only things she has the capacity for.

When Hawke is crowned Champion of a city left in rubble and blood, it feels inevitable.

> 11.

Hawke is rarely able to escape Kirkwall the months after becoming Champion, and when she can she drags her feet and takes as long as she can. Sundermount has always had a kind of wild beauty, bleak and cold even in summer, and the frosted path crunches underfoot as they make their way up the mountain. Sometimes, Anders swears he hears whispers from the other side of the Veil. If Sebastian closes his eyes, he can easily imagine the whistling of the wind has a threatening, low murmur to it. Sundermount is not a friendly place, with undead stalking the heights and loose stones, with a high, eerie, singing wind. Despite this, Hawke likes it out here, maybe because it’s quiet, maybe because it’s remote, maybe because it’s bleakly beautiful. Sebastian is of the opinion it’s isolated for a good reason. Still, she likes it out here, and he never turns down an opportunity to spend time with her.

They dig out the old books Merrill had asked for, pages upon pages of elven script on them, yellowed around the edges, and begin to descend again. Fenris stores the books in his pack, slung over one shoulder. Sebastian has lost a quarter of quiver today, either through breaking or misses that he can’t find later, despite the white band he carefully applies to the shaft. He has several more quivers back at the Chantry, but he’s been neglecting keeping them well stocked. He’ll need to make some new ones soon. There’s a certain artistry to making arrows, and while he isn’t opposed to buying them, he’s always enjoyed the process. He’s always liked shaping them under his hands, putting his time and energy into something that’ll no doubt take someone’s life. It’s a form of penance, perhaps, an acknowledgement of what they are. Arrows are weapons, and while they aren’t always fatal shots, he walks around with twenty four potential deaths upon his back. It would be unwise to forget the weight of it.

They slow just above where the Dalish clan have settled, red clan banners loose and flapping in the breeze, and she pauses one last time, eyes far away and sad. The sun is lowering in the sky, although they have a few hours to leave the chilly, whispering peaks and valleys that form Kirkwall’s mountains. When she smiles at him, hair blown back by the wind, his breath catches in his throat and his responding smile is too open and too honest to hide what he feels.

When she takes his hand after they pass through the Dalish clan, the path becoming firmer underneath their feet, nobody comments on it. He doesn’t stop smiling until he’s back at the Chantry, the evening mass finishing as he enters, Elthina’s flock slowly making their way outside. The doors are wide open and the light spills golden into the courtyard. He thinks of Hawke’s dark skin and the bright fire of the candles upon it, of her steady hands, of the sunburst halo and the bloody smear on the side of her mouth, and he feels as if he is falling. He has never been more certain of anything in his entire life.

If Hawke asked him now if he was afraid, he would say no.

> 12.

He is in the Chantry’s garden when she visits him, picking out weeds among the tomatoes and carrots. He is wearing an admittedly terrible hat, and he sits back on his feet to greet her, the sun pleasant across his shoulders. Before he can protest she kneels a few rows over and joins him. One of the sisters loans her an equally terrible hat, broad rimmed and woven with sun-bleached straw. She talks about Lothering, about its pale fields of wheat and tiny, humble Chantry. She talks about her father and her mother, voice starting off strong but wobbling towards the end. She doesn’t talk about Malcolm much, if at all, and he is content to listen to her stories of a family half a lifetime away. She answers his questions and soon has him talking about harvest festivals in Starkhaven, the tables of food laid out after a good season, then about his own family, the brothers he once resented, the parents he once shamed.

It isn’t until he’s emptied the basket of weeds into the compost bin and untied his apron, resting it over the hook with his hat her words falter. When he glances over, she’s playing with the brim of her borrowed hat, before she decisively sets it aside. She steps forward into his space, and he turns to face her, hand raising to take her elbow.

"Can I try something?"

"Of course."

She stalls for a moment longer, then steps forward, leans up, rising up on her toes and kisses him. He kisses her back, gently and close mouthed. She rests her hands on his waist, fingers catching his shirt and kisses him again. When she settles back on her feet, she doesn’t take her hands away. “That was… nice.” She said, then closed her eyes and sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. He turns his head and rests his cheek on her head. “I didn’t dislike that. But I don’t think… I want to want it.”

"This is enough." He tells her. It is enough, it’s more than enough. She is warm and solid, and her breathing is soft against his neck.

"For how long?"

"For as long as you’ll have me."

"If you mean that-"

"I do."

"If you mean that," she repeats, voice firmer now, "I’d like to… oh, this was better in my head. I have a great deal of faith, Sebastian, and I… I know now there is nothing about me that is broken. But I would try, for you, because I… care a great deal for you, and if you wanted it…"

"I took vows I have no intention of breaking, but- look, Hawke. I… greatly admire you. You are… if I had no vows, this would still be enough, because I don’t need more to know, with absolute certainty, that I want to be with you."

She is quiet for a long moment, and when she speaks her voice is light and brimming with affection. “Are you certain of _everything_?”

"Nearly nothing. But I’m sure on this, and I'm sure on you."

Hawke reaches out and takes his hand, and he links his fingers through hers. They both have dirt under their fingernails, and when he looks at her, she’s smiling.

> 13.

Sometimes, he forgets about Starkhaven.

It’s not so far, he knows, a mere few weeks or so, but it might as well be years away. It’s easy to stay in Kirkwall, stay with Hawke and the friends he has made, stay where he is safe. Starkhaven is continuing on. The harvest still comes in, the peasants go on with their lives, and nothing has changed for them. If he returned, he would bring war and death with him, and that isn’t what he wants for his city. He would ask soldiers he doesn’t have to pledge themselves to his pride, his own desires. The city is surviving, and while the new prince is nothing but a puppet to a dead master, it doesn’t need him. He’ll go back if it needs him, if there’s a sign from the Maker. If the nobles begin hurting the people or the land, he’ll return with an army and retake it.

He has found his peace he’s sought for so long, and it’s with Hawke and Kirkwall. Even if sometimes he still closes his eyes and sees the crown of Starkhaven above him, tantalisingly close, when he opens his eyes he’s in the Chantry, the place that made him a man, the place that has become a home. When he is standing on the field of battle, with adrenaline flooding his body and making his heart race, it’s easy to miss Starkhaven, miss the hunting and his family. Is he honouring their memory by staying hidden behind his faith, so close to his home and yet so far? Would they be ashamed? Should he do what they’d want, instead of what he wants? Is it still his duty?

When Hawke laughs, when she links her arms around his neck and kisses him feather light, when she’s in the midst of battle, when she’s holding his hand in the morning when he wakes up next to her, the thought of leaving her is unfathomable. She leans against him when they play Wicked Grace with their friends, and sits with him as he fletches new arrows, learning to make her own. He begins to loop red around them as markers instead of white, and he never wants these moments to end.

> 14.

The Viscount’s throne room had been grim and silent, a fine layer of dust coating everything. It had a kind of dreamy unreality to it, the moon slanting through the high, thin windows, but the blood mages had died easily enough. Hawke had yanked her shield free of a body with a spray of blood accompanying the motion when Sister Nightingale had entered the news of an Exalted March considered for Kirkwall. It would bring nothing but death and ruin, and while Sebastian has recently renewed his vows as a brother, he knows he wouldn’t stand by. He _couldn’t_ stand by while Hawke drove herself forward to fight anything that threatened innocents, even the sword of the Maker.

"If Kirkwall falls to magic, none of us are safe."

"None of you." Anders had whispered in response, like the spirits at Sundermount, thrice as damning. His new black coat hung heavy off his lean frame, the old, stained, yellow gold coat and patchy grey feathers gone. Sebastian thought of finding him alone in the Chantry one day while Her Grace was out visiting Lowtown. His nails had a fine layer of black dust underneath them, and they were chewed down to their stumps. He had slipped away, saying even mages pray, but he hadn’t been able to forget the look in his eyes. Hawke tells him later Anders asked her to distract the Grand Cleric, a request she had refused, and the feeling taking root in his stomach grows like a weed.

When he gets back to the Chantry that night, feeling sick and scared of it’s halls for the first time, a sister is giving a sermon. There are less and less people in the evening mass every month. Hawke attends many of them, and they stand side by side. He’d like to stand by her side for the rest of his life. He wants to spend his entire life with her, and the eternity beyond.

"Those who had sought to claim Heaven by violence destroyed it. What was golden and pure turned black. Those who had once been mage-lords, the brightest of their age…"

He runs his hand over his ring finger, and wonders if Hawke would marry him.

"…were no longer men, but monsters."

> 15.

He believes many things to be inevitable. It is inevitable the mages will rebel and plunge Kirkwall into chaos, even though Hawke struggles to keep the peace. She gives the Knight-Commander her support while she tries to protect the mages from the templars. It is an impossible task, and nobody could do it. She tries anyway. It is inevitable that he wakes up one morning and he realises he has not thought of his family for days. He tries to make up for it by praying for hours, and is left silently begging forgiveness from the dead. He is forgetting them. He is forgetting them. It was inevitable that he fell in love with Hawke.

It is inevitable he loves Hawke, with all her fire and passion, all her integrity and honour, all her anger and stubbornness. Whenever she looks at him, her whole face glowing with warmth, he feels as if they could do anything they put their minds to. He is still sure of nearly nothing, except her and his own faith. He holds her hands on the altar and says ‘i will’, with every single iota of love and certainty he can, and her smile is radiant when she responds in kind. He holds her close during their dance, cheek resting on her head, and listens to the bard play a soft, sweet tune, the words lost to Hawke’s breathing and his own. This is everything, he thinks, as they sway in an idle, slow circle, their friends laughing and talking around them, this is everything.

She is a safe haven as Kirkwall spirals, tension bleeding from the Gallows and spilling out across the city like a poisonous stain. When he sleeps next to her at night, he is careful not to wake her, but he holds her close and promises to himself nothing will happen to her. She’ll protect him, and he’ll protect her, and if he lost her—

If he lost her—

The thought steals all the breath from his lungs whenever he thinks of losing another. He holds her close during the balmy Kirkwall nights, his ring on her hand and her ring on his, and tries to ward away the doubt, the fear. He thinks of his family, and how he has lost them, lost his city, lost his home. No, he thinks, she’ll save this city, have faith in the one you love. They’ll do it together and none need to intervene, not the Divine herself. Hawke is Champion of Kirkwall, a title won with blood, sweat and skill. She has reached dazzling heights, and deserves every one of the accolades she has received.

and how far will she fall, someone that sounds like his mother whispers. everyone falls, sebastian. everyone falls.

> 16.

Hawke stands on the steps of the Gallows with her red scarf in tatters and her sister unable to look at her. All he can think is that she found her cause, and it was Kirkwall. She doesn’t look victorious. She looks tired and sad, and she doesn’t smile when she sees him. Her grip is tight when she takes his hand. She had gripped her sword tightly too, when the mages had fought back, screaming, pleading and twisting into abominations when they realised they were lost. She had stood over their bodies and prayed to the Maker for absolution, for safety, for _peace_.

(“You always do the right thing, Hawke.” Merrill had said in a small voice, when the boat sliced a path through the churning water towards the Gallows. “Why are you doing this?”

When Hawke had looked at them, her jaw had been set and her kind eyes had been as hard as stone, the threat of an exalted march hanging heavy over their heads. “I’m trying to protect my city,” she had responded, “I’m trying to stop a war.”)

She doesn’t wear that look anymore, and she squeezes his hand. “I’m so sorry, love.” She said, and he leaned down, bumping his forehead against hers gently, closing his eyes. “She’s with the Maker now.”

"I know." He remembers her standing behind Anders, knife in her hand. She had forgiven him. He doesn’t know if she really did, or whether she was trying to give him peace in his final moments. "I thought I could protect her." His voice catches, and he has to swallow before he speaks again. "I thought I could… I _promised_.” Elthina loved you, something within him screams, high and broken and terrified, she loved you, and you failed her— you always fail them—

"There is nothing you could’ve done." She leans in close, and he rests his head on her shoulder. She is all he has left. Nobody but her. His words mean nothing, nor his promises. His words have always meant nothing. A man is judged by his actions, not his words, and he has failed at every turn when given the chance to prove himself. She holds him tight and he shakily breathes into her neck. He excels at nothing but loss.

When Hawke is crowned viscount of a city left in rubble and ashes, it feels inevitable.


End file.
